A minimalist set. As we go in a figure in a red anorak is seated, back to the audience. The lights go down. The figure leaves. Lights down. Polixenese is sitting on the bench. Lights up – Leontes in jeans is racing round the set, leaping on Polixenes for boyish play wrestling, play fighting vigorously with Mamillus, his son. We wonder if the cast are in their street clothes, but then Camillo comes on in a morning suit. All the courtiers are in morning suits. As Leontes addresses us, other characters freeze where they are. The rectangular container at the rear is lit differently from time to time. It opens in flaps with a smack on the stage when needed.

Leontes (Orlando James) carrying Mamillus (Tom Cawte)

Mamillus, the son, (Tom Cawte)s is for the first time ever, a major character, weeping, having tantrums on stage. An amazing performance for an adult actor playing a child.

Orlando James as Leontes is a full force gale, a terrific impassioned Leontes. a performance of incredible charisma and power. He demonstrates his jealousy, manipulating Polixenes and Hermione like mannikins, putting them in positions, placing their hands together. Their bodies, as he moves them, are demonstrating his tortured fantasies.

As with the RSC production in 2013, Leontes change to harshness is marked by changing out of jeans into dark clothes.

The play is massively cut. The interval arrives fast. We breathe a deep sigh.At this point, powered by Orlando James’s central role, this is a 5 star production.

But The Winter’s Tale has that massive shift from the uptight jealous court of Sicilia to the bucolic wilds of Bohemia (with its lovely beaches, Shakespeare’s major geographical screw up). The tone veers suddenly from tragedy, to comedy … this is signposted at the end of part one, when the shepherds discover the baby Perdita on the beach, after Antigonus has exited pursued by a bear. And been eaten. The shepherds lead the switch in the last two minutes of the first half. For a change, we have Irish accented peasantry rather than Mummerset or generic North of Engand.

Old shepherd (Peter Moreton) and young shepherd (Sam McArdle). It is only by reading the cast list that you notice Peter Moreton is also Antigonus.

We move forward 16 years after the interval, starting with a quick flashback of the end of part one, and Time introduces the second half of rural high jinks at the Bohemian sheep shearing festival. The 21st century rurals are dressed in glittery dresses for a Friday night boozy party. Lights are being strung at the back. Autolycus, is a guitar playing busker, improvising most of the part and singing the songs … fortunately his convoluted Jacobean arch punning speeches have been abandoned. Most of his lines have gone, though later he becomes an airport customs officer to send the shepherds off to Sicilia with their cache of jewellery (Has anyone tampered with your box?)

Bohemia – Autolycus (Ryan Donaldson) standing on the box

Actually, the bucolic fun and dance was shambolic. The modern dance to loud off stage bass guitar was memorable, but the earlier dance-freeze-dance-freeze section to muted accordion and guitar was definitely weak on choreography … surprisingly so given how tight all the freezing had been in part one. Also, you either have music or not, rather than half-hearted music. We did admire the character in plum tights holding her high-heeled foot in a twisted position, with hip bent to one side, frozen in mid dance, for at least two minutes.

The issue is intrinsic. You build up a major role in Leontes in part one, then he disappears till right near the end. I recall the saying Hamlet without the Prince. The whole Bohemia sequence is The Winter’s Tale without Leontes. That’s what Shakespeare wrote, and why it’s a problem play. Bohemia is also very, very heavily cut.

Everyone treks back to Sicilia, apparently by plane this time. The explanations at the end are hurried in the original text as if Shakespeare had got fed up with all those So she was the child that was washed up on the beach, and so she’s a princess, even though Florizel thought he was marrying a country wench and … and …. Here they’re cut so fast that it’s almost garbled … a little over-reliance on knowing the play, I thought.

Hermione as statue

Then the statue sequence arrives, when Leontes is shown the statue of Hermione which comes alive. The statue is usually at the back in an inner stage … which they had with the container. However, the statue appears front stage and seated on a pedestal. I didn’t see how they spirited her into position. The marvel of her holding a statue pose for so long is diluted because they’ve all been doing statue mimes since the start of the play. I would have changed “Descend! Descend!” to “Ascend! Ascend” as she is seated.

It ends with a long, long statue tableaux of a group hug round Hermione. Time, the figure in a red anorak at the start, leads Mamillus on to observe it, then back off stage. The end.

In The New York Times, Ben Bradley described it:

That climactic moment is ravishingly rendered here, amid candle-lighted shadows and ecclesiastic song. Yet the postures of its awe-struck participants, who huddle together in a teary mass, bring to mind a writhing tower of damned flesh out of Hieronymus Bosch. It’s hard to believe that any of these unpleasant folks — including Leontes, still wild-eyed — have achieved holy redemption.

It is highly original, memorable, and threw new light on many aspects of the play. Orlando James was a towering Leontes.

In the end? A five star first half, a three star somewhat confused Bohemia. High concept ending. Unmissable.

Overall: ****

NOTE:

In many of the online pictures, you can see characters projected onto the container. We didn’t and I suspect they had a video projection problem, though the projected bear worked. Two or three times, a video control panel appeared projected on the back: INPUT: VIDEO but no picture. The lighting was excellent and it didn’t matter BUT looking on line, it does appear a major element in the concept was lost.